


signaling a miracle

by jeien



Category: Sound Horizon
Genre: Birthday Party, Christmas, Gen, Laurent Secret Santa 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 10:32:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13121910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeien/pseuds/jeien
Summary: Revo-P invites Noel to a party on Christmas day. Noel has a bad premonition, but goes anyway. Shenanigans and a pep talk from our resident winter spirit ensue.





	signaling a miracle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rotKaiserin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotKaiserin/gifts).



> For Laurent Secret Santa 2017 on Tumblr. My recipient is the lovely Kai / @dollofdeath. Hope you enjoy!

"Noe-noe," Revo-P calls with a teasing lilt, "any plans for Christmas weekend?"

It's usually a harmless question: something to pass the time or to make idle chit-chat as they wait for Ichizou to return with some post-recording coffee. It’s all the more reason for Noel to suspect it. "Don't tell me I have to go to a company party or anything."

Revo-P stares at him for a few quiet moments—and Noel thinks that he’s probably blinking with a dawning realization behind those sunglasses—before he reaches into his pocket to quickly scan his phone for any emails.   _Is this guy for real?_ _How is he a producer?_   In any case, wouldn’t _he_ normally be the one organizing a party for his talents anyway?!

There’s a quick sigh of relief, almost unnoticeable, before the man before him regains his usual aloof bravado. “Nope! No official company party, but there is a little get-together I’d like for you to attend.”

 _Do I have to?_ almost slips out of his mouth, but he manages to bite it back. Ichizou had told him that it’s good to expand his horizons. Maybe he’ll make important connections in the industry.

“…I guess I’ll go.”

“Great!” The enigmatic smile that blooms on Revo-P’s face reminds Noel of a cat about to catch the canary. The producer cocks his head to the side in a play on being cute and innocent before saying, “I’ll see you in a few days, then! It’s going to be at the hall around the corner of the main avenue. You know the one, right? Of course you do! Oh, and no need to bring presents or anything. There’s not going to be a gift exchange.”

—And in a flash, he was gone.

Noel’s shoulders slump and his brows knit together, trying to piece what had just occurred. It might’ve been a bad idea to accept the proposal, but the possible prospect of Revo-P annoying him at his apartment for bailing (or, _even worse_ , keeping him company within the sanctity of his own home) would be disastrous. Flashbacks of several beer cans scattered across his floor makes him shudder. Never again.

The day arrives quicker than he expects and, after receiving several Christmas greetings from his band mates and Ichizou’s family, Noel heads off to the meeting spot with a heavy foreboding gurgling in his stomach. If Revo-P’s planned it, there’s no telling what this could be.

Noel gets there at least two hours earlier than the time given. _Well, damn, I should’ve taken my sweet-ass time walking_ , he tells himself as he passes the building’s threshold. Bursts of noise bounce off the walls from further down: there must already been people around. Is the party already in high swing? _Now that I think on it, Revo-P didn’t give me any other details about it_. Noel pushes the door to the hall open and—

“Make sure you put the star right at the top, Lenny!”

“Uncle, you need to move left!”

“Maerchen, you already have enough chains going around you; you don’t need to add garlands to your ensemble.”

“Then kindly help me unravel myself from this godforsaken thing instead of standing there like a sitting duck, Ehrenberg.”

Now it’s _his_ turn to stare. The crazy seniors Revo-P had introduced him to that other time are here, somehow. By the looks of it, they’re decorating the hall. There’s a Christmas tree at the corner, but there’s also an equal amount of birthday-related party favors and decorations going up on the walls and ceiling. There’s only one phrase that can adequately express his thoughts:

“What the fuck.”

The man he remembers as Elefseus pauses as he helps haul out some folding chairs from a nearby storage room. “Hm? I thought he wasn’t supposed to come until later.”

“Uh—?”

He feels a pair of hands rest atop his shoulders, like a window pane in the middle of the first snow. Noel turns his head to see a face similar to his own, but veiled by downy white hair and dotted with a sun and moon at the cheeks: Hiver Laurent.

“Were you anxious, Noel?” Hiver asks, slowly leading him away from the room. “Revo had told us you would be coming at five.”

Noel looks back at the door, closing them off from the mayhem ensuing in the other room. Normally, he’d deny it—what reason did he have to be anxious, anyway?—but there had always been something about Hiver that was unnervingly calming. “I mean… I guess? I just wanted to get this over with, to be honest. You know I’m not that great with dealing with people.”

“Are you sure it’s not because you feel like you should be alone?”

His head whirls forward to meet Hiver’s eyes. His senior merely smiles. It’s different from Revo-P’s catty mischief, but the aloofness—the traces of something familiar, something just as lonesome—is there. “You know, life is something meant to be celebrated. Each day, new miracles occur with the birth of every child, whose possibilities are just as endless as the horizon beyond our reach.” Hiver bridges the distance between them and holds Noel’s hands. “Your life, too, is one of those miracles. That you can tie together several horizons—that you’re able to bring something always at the tips of our fingers together—is an incredible thing. I cherish it. I cherish you.”

Noel sputters a little. “That… That might be exaggerating it a little.”

“ _Non_ , _non_ ,” Hiver says gently. “It’s precisely it. I cherish the life you’ve been given because it brought us all together. Shouldn’t you cherish your own life, as well?”

His mouth opens to say something in return—about how it almost sounds like a romance scene or about how Hiver might be reading too into the situation—when a crash from the hall interrupts their conversation. The pair look at each other before bursting through the doors. Revo-P is somehow on the floor with the Christmas tree on top of him and some cords wrapped around his ankle. Shaytan and Elefseus are trying to hold up the tree while Seamus and Maerchen grab one arm each to pull him out from underneath.

Revo-P, upon seeing Noel at the door, flashes an awkward smile before greeting him with, “Uh… Happy birthday?”

Noel takes in a deep breath. The fact that he’s alive to be able to walk the streets, to be able play the music he wants to play, to have friends and others who care for him, to be able to witness such a stupid an utterly ridiculous scene before him—

“This may not be a miracle, but it sure is fucking _something_.” And with a chuckle under his breath, Noel runs over to heave his strange producer from the mess.

As the party eventually goes underway, there are specks of neon blue in his peripherals. He pays no mind to them. He pays no mind to the walls beyond the space of the hall, of the building, of the city. He pays no mind to the Overseer of his miniature garden and its countless binary transmissions, trying to find a way to reconnect him to his body lying in a hospital bed.

Noel only blows out his candles after they sing him “Happy Birthday.”


End file.
